From tragedy to positivity, Ben’s

Bells toll for everyone

Link to article: https://www.ctinsider.com/living/article/From-tragedy-to-positivity-Ben-s-Bells-
toll-13972358.php

Nestled behind a hardware store, not too far away from the heart of Bethel, Ben’s Bells is open
to all. Part workshop and part teaching center, the organization’s mission focuses on the
positive impacts of intentional kindness and practicing kindness as a way of life.

This message is emphasized through the idea of communal creation. The studio is filled with
tables, scattered with paints, brushes and ceramic baubles that are ready to be worked on.
Though participants contribute to various pieces, presumably the most significant is the Ben’s
Bell itself. By the time it is finished, the wind chime, composed of several ceramic beads and a
flower-shaped centerpiece, has been touched by the hands of at least 10 different community
members.

Although the studio is the picture of tranquility, Ben’s Bells came about in the face of profound
tragedy for founder Jeannette Maré. The organization is dedicated to her son, who died
suddenly when he was 2 years old.

“I really quickly started understanding kindness in a different way,” Maré says. “It was lifesaving
for me.”

On the first anniversary of Ben’s death, Maré wanted to do something special to honor his
memory. She found inspiration in an Oregon artist who left glass boats out for community
members to find. In her garage, with friends and family, Maré created 400 ceramic windchimes,
or bells, that would soon become symbolic of the organization. Each Ben’s Bell was distributed
in the community with the simple message to take one home and pass on the kindness.

“We hung them out to surprise people and that was going to be it,” Maré says, explaining that
the process was therapeutic, “but then people had their own stories and it took on a life of its
own.”

The first studio opened in Tucson, Ariz., where the Marés lived, after community members
began inquiring about how they could get involved. In the studio, volunteers can take part in
various aspects of the creation process from molding the clay to painting to assembling the
Ben’s Bells to be hung out in the community by hand-selected volunteers.

On top of its creative mission, Ben’s Bells also aspires to spread its teachings of intentional
practices of kindness through a school program called Kind Campus and a workplace program
called Kind Colleagues.
It was through these extensions of the organization that Ben’s Bells eventually found its way to
Connecticut. Jennifer Avari, who now sits on the organization’s board, attended a corporate
event in Phoenix in 2012 where they had a bell-making workshop. As she learned about the
mission of Ben’s Bells, she felt that such an influence was needed in her daughter’s classroom
and helped to institute Kind Campus at Middle Gate Elementary School in Newtown.

Not long after, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred. Maré sent 1,000 bells to
be hung in Newtown. The message of kindness resonated with people then more than ever,
and, similar to the Tucson residents, they, too, wanted to know how they could get involved.

Avari, along with several other volunteers, began running bell-making sessions for crowds of 50
to 100 people.

“It was a way for people to connect and reach out to each other, a feeling of community when
we needed it,” Avari says. Eventually, in 2015, the project became a fixture with the
establishment of a permanent location in Bethel.

The studio offers multiple opportunities for involvement. There are open studio hours Tuesday
through Thursday and on Saturdays so that anyone who wants to get involved may do so.

On other days, the studio engages with the community in different ways, for instance, creating
murals to be affixed in local areas or hosting school groups to work together on projects such as
the painting of kindness coins, which are then given to others to inspire kindness in them.

Though every person’s connection to Ben’s Bells is diverse, the one commonality that most
share, the appeal of the project, is the wish to spread kindness.

“None of [the creations] are replicable,” says Yasmeen Galal, a seventh-grader who came to the
studio on a field trip with Long River Middle School in Prospect. “Each one is unique and sends
its own message.”

The mission has even spread farther than its roots in Bethel. The studio’s intern, Kendra
Dascano, is a Danbury resident who volunteered with Ben’s Bells for several years before
starting a chapter Pace University this past year.

“There’s a unique, sort of magical component to where the bells end up,” says Cody Foss, the
regional manager. Many even maintain that people don’t find the bells, but that the bells find
them.

“Everyone that comes in has a different reason for why they need kindness,” Avari says.
“Everyone needs it for some reason.”